1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a plasma display device using a plasma display panel.
2. Description of the Related Art
Currently, as a thin display device, an AC type (alternating discharge type) plasma display panel becomes commercially available. In the plasma display panel, two substrates, that is, a front glass substrate and a rear glass substrate are disposed with a predetermined space as faced to each other. On the inner surface (the surface facing the rear glass substrate) of the front glass substrate as a display surface, multiple row electrode pairs are formed as sustain electrode pairs, which are paired with each other and extended in parallel. On the rear glass substrate, multiple column electrodes are extended and formed as address electrodes as intersecting with the row electrode pairs, and are coated with a fluorescent material. When seen from the display surface side, a display cell corresponding to a pixel is formed at the intersection part of the row electrode pair with the column electrode. To the plasma display panel, gray scale addressing using a subfield method is implemented in order to obtain halftone display brightness as corresponding to input video signals.
In gray scale addressing based on the subfield method, a plurality of subfields are provided. In each of the subfields to which the number of times (or periods) to do light emission is assigned, display addressing is implemented to one field of video signals. Further, in each of the subfields, an address stage and a sustain stage are in turn implemented. In the address stage, in accordance with input video signals, selective discharge is selectively generated between the row electrode and the column electrode in each of the display cells to form a predetermined amount of wall electric charge (or remove it). In the sustain stage, only a display cell where a predetermined amount of wall electric charge is formed is repeatedly discharged, and a light emission state in association with that discharge is maintained. Furthermore, at least at the starting subfield, prior to the address stage, an initializing stage is implemented. In the initializing stage, in all the display cells, reset discharge is generated between the paired row electrodes to implement the initializing stage which initializes the amount of wall electric charge remaining in all the display cells.
In the sustain stage, in the case where many display cells are set in the lighting state and a sustain pulse is applied to generate discharge in many cells almost at the same time, a large amount of current is carried momentarily, and distortion occurs in the voltage waveform of the sustain pulse. Consequently, in accordance with a slight shift in a time point to start discharge, the voltage value being applied in discharge is varied in each of the display cells, variation occurs in discharge intensity, and thus display quality might be deteriorated.
Moreover, in the plasma display panel, although luminous efficiency is improved by increasing the proportion of xenon gas contained in discharge gas, a sustain discharge voltage in the sustaining stage increases. As a result, the level of luminance increases, so that residual image effect might become large.